Kitty Is Not a Cat

Kitty Is Not a Cat is an Australian cartoon produced by BES Animation for Seven Network. Described by BES Animation themselves as being "in the style of Monsters, Inc., Three Men and a Baby and with a little Top Cat thrown in", the series is the collective brainchild of Australian animators and BES Animation founders Bruce Kane and Maurice Argiro, who also created Monster Beach and Exchange Student Zero.

In this series, a group of 15 stray cats have inherited an old decaying mansion left to them by an eccentric baroness. Each cat is a master of a specific musical instrument and brims with their own quirky character, so naturally, they just spend their days partying away and practicing their tunes. Their carefree life is suddenly interrupted however when a little orphan girl named Kitty shows up at their doorstep. Kitty is at that age where children believe they can be anything they want when they grow up... and Kitty has decided that she wants to be a cat.

Reluctantly, the cats decide to take Kitty into their household, but they aren't entirely certain what to do with this tiny human who dresses in an orange catsuit and only speaks in incomprehensible meows and purrs. Nonetheless, the gang will try their best to take care of Kitty and perhaps teach her more about being a human. And while they may not really have the best understanding of humans and are often confounded by the way humans act, these 15 felines love Kitty with all their hearts. Even though they find themselves getting into plenty of shenanigans as they do their best to raise Kitty, they can always count on Kitty and each other to learn a few things about both being human and being feline along the way.

The series officially premiered on April 20, 2018 on 7TWO in Australia. Its second season was announced in September 2018, and that premiered on November 11, 2019, also on 7TWO. In October 2019, its third and final season was announced, concluding the show at 130 ten-minute episodes. The first season also enjoyed extremely wide international distribution, popping up on children's channels in Brazil, India, China, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and New Zealand, but in the vast majority countries, seasons 2 and 3 have yet to air (Australia included, having suddenly dropped the show halfway through season 2). Surprisingly, the show even made its way to the United States (a rarity for Australian cartoons not named Bluey), where the first season was briefly picked up by The Roku Channel, and then later by the Kidoodle app (which also grabbed season 2).

The intro to the series can be seen here, and full episodes can be watched on the official YouTube channel here. The show also has official Instagram and TikTok pages. Visit its official website here.

---

Kitty is not a trope!

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: While most of the cats wear either nothing or perfectly normal cat collars, five of them fall under this category:
  • King Tubby wears a tin can on his head, which is meant to be a crown.
  • The Nazz wears a scarf and a hat.
  • Miley wears eyeglasses.
  • Thorn wears a pair of white flat boots.
  • Last Chance wears an eyepatch and an arm in a cast.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Spook turns into one for Kitty in one episode — though it's actually more his own fault than Kitty's.
• Balloon Belly: Happens to both Kitty and Timmy Tom in the Season 2 episode "Sibling Rivalry" when the pair have a spaghetti-eating contest.
• Birthday Episode:
  • The first episode of the series, "Surprise for Tubby", revolves around King Tubby's birthday with the other cats planning a surprise party behind his back (though he believes they're trying to usurp him as king).
  • "Seven Cakes for Kitty" revolves around the cats trying (and failing) to make Kitty seven cakes, due to having missed approximately seven of her birthdays.
  • "Last Chance's Last Chance" revolves around Kitty trying to protect Last Chance from losing his final life on his birthday, after the cats realize that he loses a life on each of his birthdays.
• Cats Are Superior: Generally the attitude adopted by most of the cast, including Kitty... though in reality, the cats are generally not as much on top of the game as they think they are.
• Cats Hate Water: "Kitty Takes a Bath" sees the cats having to give Kitty a bath. Unfortunately, not only are none of them brave enough to go anywhere near the mansion's bathtub, but Kitty herself refuses to bathe either on account of her desire to be a cat.
• Cute Kitten: Timmy-Tom is naturally this. Kitty does her best to be one... and though she isn't an actual cat, she does tend to succeed in being utterly adorable.
• Cute Mute: Kitty never speaks; she only communicates in cat sounds, which neither the audience nor the actual cats understand.
• Clip Show: Both the first and second seasons have several clip show episodes - occasionally, this leads to clips being shown Out of Order from episodes that hadn't happened yet.
• Expository Theme Tune: The theme song explains how Kitty came to live with the cats, and introduces some of the cats.
• Fake Aristocrat: King Tubby claims to be the king of all cats. In reality, he's just another stray, and not a particularly bright one at that.
• Fearless Fool: Kitty, in most circumstances. One episode does reveal that she is afraid of the dark, but for the most part, she's utterly fearless and not particularly aware of danger when it threatens.
• Funny Animal: The cats occupy this role, and are even seen talking to humans. Which of course makes Kitty's meows all the more baffling.
• Furry Reminder: They may well stand, talk, and play music, but the cats are still easily distracted by squeaky toys, they wash by licking themselves, and they'll use everything as a scratching post.
• Ironic Name: Mr. Clean, who (unusually for a cat) is The Pig-Pen.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Ming is rude, haughty, and dismissive at the best of times, but he cares more than he lets on.
  • The mice can be real jerks at times, but they will help out if it's an emergency.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: King Tubby thinks he's an expert on humans and human behaviour. About Once an Episode he'll lapse into a detailed explanation on some particularity about humans, which is without fail based on a spectacular misunderstanding.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Kitty, although it's unclear whether this really is her name or just what she likes to be called.
  • Some of the cats have very descriptive names: King Tubby is rather fat, Thorn has a "thorny" personality, Happy is always smiling, and Spook is easily startled.
  • The human neighbors, the Stinkletons, are about as comically unpleasant as their name suggests.
• Origins Episode: The episode "The Arrival" (a reworked version of the pilot) is a Whole Episode Flashback showing how Kitty arrived at the cat house and was accepted into their family.
• Pilot: The show seems to have had an unreleased one, with only certain clips remaining in a teaser that was released in 2016. From what is seen, it has a slightly Darker and Edgier vibe, and a few changes were made in the final version, including the scrapping of Blossom and Rose from the main crew (though the latter was repurposed as Thorn's sister, and given a major personality change).
• Riddle for the Ages: Everything relating to Kitty’s past such as where she came from, why does she think she’s a cat, why she only meows, and is “kitty” her actual name?
• Spell My Name with a "The": It's "The Nazz," thank you very much.
• The Smart Guy: There are three of them among the fifteen cats:
  • Miley is the bespectacled Deadpan Snarker youngster who generally knows better than most what's going on but seldom bothers to do anything about it.
  • The Nazz is the down-to-Earth old-timer who usually dispenses the words of wisdom.
  • Mr Clean is the cat equivalent of a Gadgeteer Genius.
• Soap Within a Show: General Romantic Hospital; Which is Spook's favorite show.
• Team Mom: Petal is referred to as one on her character page at the official website.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Thorn and Petal have very feminine shapes with wide hips and hints towards hourglass figures — plus, Thorn wears lipstick, for some reason. Miley has a similar body shape to the male cats, but has pink fur. The trope is completely averted with Luna, who doesn't have any visible feminine characteristics.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: The show has a very short one: out of a main cast of 15 cats, only four are mentioned while the rest are simply shown throughout the theme.

  Timmy the young one wants her to stay
  He's so sure she'll be a cat one day
  Look at King Tubby, sitting on his throne
  Pretending that he knows just what's going on!
  Thorn's so cool, and is sharp as a tack
  She's nobody's fool, you'd better watch your back
  While The Nazz looks on playing his song
  Stirring things right when it seems like they're goin' so wrong...

• Truncated Theme Tune: In season 2, Jetpack Distribution heavily shortened the intro once the show aired on TVP ABC in Poland for unknown reasons. This didn't happen during the season's original Australian broadcast.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The neighbors seem to think nothing about a mansion of talking cats, even if they talk in front of them.

---

---